CONG REGATIONALISM

KS
J"3 &Gc

DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

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CONGREGATIONALISM

"Look unto the rock whence ye were hewn and
to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged."

CONGREGATIONALISM

BY
CHARLES E. JEFFERSON, D.D.

THE PILGRIM PRESS
BOSTON NESf^tHMK. ';— -CHICAGO

KS
T~55G

My

Copyright, 1910
By Luther H. Cart

THB . PlIMPTOH . PRESS
[w.D.o]
NORWOOD . MASS . U . S . A

CONGREGATIONALISM

USES OP HISTORY
A HEBREW preacher was never so much at
home as when he was dealing with the past.
It was his delight to carry his countrymen back
over the road along which they had traveled and
to revive the memories of the experiences through
which the nation had come. He loved the past,
not because he was the victim of that morbid
sentimentalism which loves to brood over scenes
which have vanished, but because he was so
intensely interested in the future. The Hebrew
preacher felt himself called of God to make the
future glorious, and in order to do this he was
obliged to use the past. He dealt with a people
who were easily discouraged and in order to brace
their drooping spirits he held up before them
the glowing record of God's dealings with their
fathers. By unrolling history he showed them
how through all the centuries every night had
Wj dawned into a broader day, and every crown of
lo thorns had been transfigured into a crown of
' glory. When his hearers grew faint-hearted and
b° approached great duties with fear and doubtings,
\ he heartened them and drove them forward by
™ urging them to take one good, long look back
ward. The vision of what had been made it
-LiT~easier to believe in the things which were to be.
^ When men saw bygone centuries stand behind
- 5

'A

6 CONGREGATIONALISM
them, each one jeweled with the mercy of the
Lord, they faced the future with untroubled
faces, assured that he who had begun a good
work in them would perform it until the final
day. The vanished generations were colaborers
with the preacher, driving into the hearts of
living men strong reasons for expecting new
revelations of God's grace. , And so it was well-
nigh impossible for a Hebrew preacher to preach
without bringing into a sermon a bit of Hebrew
history. He never wearied of recalling Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob; he was never more eloquent
than when relating the wonders of deliverance
wrought by God through Moses. It was difficult
for a Hebrew poet to write a poem without weav
ing into it some reference to the goodness with
which God had crowned the years. The Hebrew
leaders were always saying, "Look unto the
rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of
the pit whence ye were digged." But there was
a still deeper reason why the Hebrew preacher
made such constant use of history. The Hebrews
were dominated always by the conviction that
they were a peculiar people, entrusted with a
unique mission and appointed to a glorious
destiny. From the very earliest times it had
been borne in upon them that to them was given
what was given to no other people, and that
through them all the nations of the earth were
ultimately to be blessed. To men possessed
with such a belief all experience must become
sacred. Everything that happened to the
Hebrews was supposed by them to have a divine
significance. Every event was a guide-post
pointing the direction in which the people ought
to move, every experience a window opening out

CONGREGATIONALISM 7
upon the Eternal. Their history was their
Bible. It was the food upon which they reared
their children. It was the literature which was
read in the synagogues, it was history which
the Levites sang in the temple service. Indeed,
our Bible is little more than a book of history.
The majority of its books are historical and the
others are adorned and illumined by quotations
from the historians. If we have "ears to hear,"
we can hear the old Book saying to us, "Look
unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and to the
hole of the pit whence ye were digged. Look
unto Abraham, your father, and unto Sarah that
bare you!"
Indeed, the history of every nation is to that
nation a Bible, a book which ought to be studied
with unfailing enthusiasm and religious care.
In the experience of a people, God's character
is revealed and his will concerning that people
is made increasingly clear. Every nation will
be strong in proportion to its willingness to gather
up the lessons which preceding generations have
worked out, and to drink in the spirit of the mighty
men who have made the nation what it is. I
wonder if we Americans are studying our history
as we ought to study it. Do we earnestly teach
it to our children in our homes, does it hold the
place in our schools which it ought to hold, is
it used in the Christian pulpit as frequently and
effectively as it ought to be used by the men who
are the ordained leaders of a people who, like the
Hebrews, are also a peculiar people and to whom
God has entrusted a mission to mankind?
If some boy should ask why not preach every
Sunday from a sentence taken from a United
States history, the answer is that while the history

8 CONGREGATIONALISM
of every nation is in the deepest sense a Bible,
there is a value to the Hebrew history which no
other can match. The Hebrews had a capacity
for religion quite exceptional in the history of
the world. They had an insight into spiritual
laws and processes and a genius for interpreting
spiritual phenomena given to no other people.
Because of their moral sensitiveness and their
responsiveness to the movements of the Eternal
Spirit, God was able to work out through them
wonders which he could do through no one else.
Out of that race he could bring a man in whom it
was possible for the Godhead to dwell, and who
could reveal to all the world both the disposition
of God and the possibilities of man. For this
reason the Bible, though largely a book of history,
is exalted above all other books. To it is given
a name which is above all other names, and to it
belongs a power which no other book can claim.
In the reading of American history, therefore,
the Bible is a lamp to our feet and a light to our
path. We will count our history sacred, but we
will hold it up in the light which streams upon
it from the Book of Books, that in this light we
may read in our own national experiences the
wondrous messages of God. II
PURITANISM
In order to grasp the significance of Congre
gationalism we must first master the meaning
of Puritanism. What is Puritanism? Whence
did it come, what did it do, when did it vanish?
These are questions which ought to have answers
in the mind of every intelligent American. Puri-

CONGREGATIONALISM 9
tanism in its essence is a zeal for purity in doctrine,
worship, and conduct. This zeal has always been
in the world. Every land and time has produced
its Puritans. There were Puritans among the
Hebrews. Elijah was one, Isaiah another, Ezra
another, John the Baptist another. From the
first century of Christian history until now, there
have been men who have resisted the corrup
tions of their day, and hungered and thirsted
after righteousness. The deeper the corruption,
the hotter has been the desire to consume it.
In the fourth and fifth centuries of our era
the Christian Church fell into the hands of a
company of Roman politicians who converted
the simple gospel of our Lord into a cumbrous
and mysterious thing which only ecclesiastical
experts could understand. The faith once de
livered to the saints was wrapped round with
many so-called traditions and curious interpreta
tions, the simple worship of early days was
elaborated into a gorgeous ceremonial decked
out with rites and features taken from the pagan
temples; the simple government of the early
churches was developed into a vast system along
lines suggested by the structure of the Roman
Empire, officials rising, one order above another,
in a compact and mighty hierarchy, at whose top
there sat the august bishop of Rome. Under
the sway of this hierarchy the virtues and graces
of the Christian life in many places drooped and
died, clergymen in appalling numbers became
dissolute and idle, while the masses of the people
floundered in ignorance and superstition. From
the very first there were men who protested
against the encroaching tyrannies and who en
deavored to stem the devastating tide. From

10 CONGREGATIONALISM
the eighth century to the thirteenth there were
isolated companies of Christians who uttered
their protest against prevailing wrongs and strove
to reproduce the pure and saintly life of Christ.
In the fourteenth century an English priest,
John Wycliffe, cried out against the usurpations
and tyrannies of Rome with a voice that shook
the universal Church. He was hated by the
hierarchy and, had it not been for powerful
defenders, he would have been promptly silenced.
After his death his body was taken from its grave,
burned to ashes, and the ashes were strewn in
the little brook which flowed in front of the
church in which this intrepid servant of God
had fired the hearts of Englishmen by telling them
the old, old story of Jesus and his love. In the
fifteenth century a Bohemian professor, John
Huss, following the example of Wycliffe, pro
tested against the Roman abominations, and for
this he was seized and burned, and his ashes were
scattered in the river Rhine. At the close of
the same century an Italian priest, Savonarola,
enraged the hierarchy by his flaming thunder
bolts, and he was strangled, and his body burned.
Near the beginning of the sixteenth century a
German priest, Martin Luther, uttered a protest
so loud and thrilling that northern Europe rose
to its feet in revolt against the corruption of the
Roman Church.
A few years later the English king, Henry VIII,
wrenched England out of the clutches of the
bishop of Rome, and thus gave opportunity for
the forces which had been working since the days
of Wycliffe to manifest themselves in efforts for
a thorough reform. These efforts, held in check
by the conservative king, became more radical

CONGREGATIONALISM 11
and vigorous under Edward VI. The movement
was checked by Bloody Mary, but gained fresh
momentum in the reign of Elizabeth. It grew
in volume and might through the reigns of the
first two of the Stuarts and reached its con
summation in the days of the Commonwealth.
Puritanism, then, as that word is used by Eng
lish-speaking people, is the movement for purity
in doctrine, worship, and life which began in the
reign of Henry VIII, as a protest against prevail
ing corruptions, which became a political force
in the reign of Elizabeth, and which came to its
coronation in the protectorate of Oliver Crom
well. Ill
PURITANS OP ENGLAND
The Puritans were the English men and women
whose hearts were hot for release from Roman
bondage, and who struggled to bring the Chris
tian Church back to the simplicity and purity of
the Gospels. We ought to take a close, long
look at these men, for they have been often mis
understood and flagrantly misrepresented. They
were hated and resisted by many of their neighbors
while they were alive, and have been caricatured
and lampooned by their enemies even to the
present hour. In the minds of many intelligent
persons now Hving the Puritans were a bigoted
and benighted race, a set of sour-faced crabbed-
hearted fanatics, who were unhappy themselves
and made it uncomfortable for everybody else.
According to the popular conception all Puritans
talked with a nasal twang, dressed in uncouth
and outlandish ways, and took delight in stripping

12 CONGREGATIONALISM
life of almost all that makes life worth Hving.
Their foibles and eccentricities have been so
magnified that some of us have lost sight com
pletely of what the Puritan really was. He has
seemed so odious and ridiculous that we have
not cared to ascertain what he actuaUy did.
The mention of his name has called up before us a
sour, narrow, inhuman individual from whom we
have hidden our faces, and a thing is "puritanic"
— so some people think — whenever it is intol
erant, unreasonable, and gloomy.
But we must not allow ourselves to become the
victims of an uninstructed imagination. We
must study history and make ourselves acquainted
with the facts. It is not safe to trust for guidance
either caricatures or lampoons or scurrilous for
geries. If we are willing to do a Httle honest
reading, we discover that the Puritans were
men of like passions with ourselves, quite sensible
and practical and altogether human. They loved
and married and brought up children just as we
do; they bought and sold, made money and lost
it, just as we do; they laughed and cried, played
and worked, like mortals of every land and time,
and enjoyed to the utmost the rich, glorious
privilege of living. They differed from one another
just as men differ from one another nowadays.
It is not fair to reduce the Puritans to one common
type of disposition, or to set up any one individual
and say, "That is Puritanism." Men of the same
church or party differ widely from one another.
Roman Catholics are not all alike, neither are
Protestants, nor Republicans, nor Democrats.
There were Puritans who were glum and morbid,
narrow and superstitious, but there were others
sunny-hearted and the most liberal men of their

CONGREGATIONALISM 13
generation. When we condemn such men as
Nehemiah Wallington, we must not forget Sir
Harry Vane, genial and open-minded, one of the
noblest characters in English history. If we
dislike John Endicott with his narrow ideas and
cruel interpretations, we must remember John
Winthrop, charitable and liberal, beautiful and
sane, one of the very noblest figures in the history
of our repubUc. Of course there were little
Puritans, morbid and fussy, but let us never
forget the great ones. There were Puritans
who shone in the firmament of their times like
stars of the first magnitude; others flickered and
sputtered like taUow dips, and it is one of these
taUow dips which the prejudiced critic of today
seizes on and holds up to scorn, saying, "Here
is the best which Puritanism could produce,"
while aU the time he is Hving in a country flooded
by the Hght which streamed from God into a
darkened world through the great souls which
had been cleansed and glorified by the Puritan
spirit. Puritanism infused into the greater natures
which it mastered, so says an English scholar
whose reHgion differs widely from that which
the Puritans professed, a solemnity and a power
such as have but once or twice been equaled in
the whole history of mankind. When, therefore,
you hear the jocose critic pouring contempt upon
the Puritans, ask him if he has ever heard of
John Knox, one of the greatest giants who ever
from a Christian pulpit shook the hearts of men
with the sweet thunders of the gospel. Ask
him if he has read John Milton, the author of
the greatest poem in English literature, and one
of the mightiest geniuses who ever enshrined

14 CONGREGATIONALISM
soaring thought in immortal verse. Ask him if he
has heard of John Bunyan, the man who wrote
the greatest allegory ever written in any language.
Ask him if he has heard the name of OUver
Cromwell, the strongest man who has sat on the
English throne since the days of WilHam the
Conqueror. These are only a few of an immortal
company of saints and heroes who stopped the
mouths of Hons and turned to flight the armies
of the aliens. IV
PURITAN ACHIEVEMENTS
And as for what the Puritans did, who can tell
the completed story? When your mole-eyed
critic has finished his jibes at the nasal twang and
the boorish manners, remind him of a few of
the great things which the Puritans accompHshed.
When kingship under the Stuarts was climbing
up the rounds of power, seeking to reproduce
on English soil a despotism Hke that of France
and Spain, it was Puritanism which boldly faced
the conquering usurper and trod him into the dust.
When the Engfish Church was exercising an
authority which Christ never gave it, and when
Church officers like William Laud were cutting
men's ears off and sfitting their noses and branding
their cheeks because they refused to conform
to ecclesiastical customs which the Church had
decreed, it was Puritanism which rebelled against
the great usurpation and won for organized
Christianity the liberty which is our pride and
glory. In an age when Catholic Spain ruled
the seas, and Catholic Rome was making desperate
efforts to regain the lordship of the lands, it was

CONGREGATIONALISM 15
Puritanism which shattered the fleets of Spain
and paralyzed the armies of the emissaries of
Rome. It was the Puritan spirit which braced
the hearts of twenty thousand Englishmen to
face the dangers of the ocean and the greater
perils of an unknown land, and these twenty
thousand pioneers have done more to shape the
structure of our institutions, and to fix our moral
and poHtical ideals, and to mold the temper
and disposition of our people than any other
twenty thousand men and women who have ever
crossed the sea. Mr. John Fiske, in the finest
piece of historical writing which ever came from
his pen, has traced with a master's hand the great
drama in which the poHtical center of gravity
was shifted from the Tiber and the Rhine to the
Thames and the Mississippi, and in his opinion
the most significant of all the events which
prophesied the final triumph of the English over
the Roman idea of nation building was the migra
tion of EngHsh Puritans across the Atlantic
Ocean to repeat in a new environment and on a
far grander scale the work which their forefathers
had wrought in Britain. In the mightiest contest
ever waged on earth between two contradictory
ideas, Puritanism was the tremendous miHtant
force that determined the issue.
But it is not only in church and state that we
are to look for the conquests of the Puritan
spirit. It was pointed out long ago by Charles
Kingsley that even in the world of fashion the
Puritans have conquered, and that they have
determined for the modern English-speaking
world the canons of taste. In the seventeenth
century the men of fashion wore their hair in
graceful curls hanging over their shoulders. It

16 CONGREGATIONALISM
seemed to the Puritans that a man should cut his
hair short. In derision they were caUed "round
heads." But every man to-day is a round-head.
O Puritan, thou hast conquered! The gentlemen
of the seventeenth century dressed in gaudy colors.
They loved red and green and blue. It seemed to
the Puritans that sober colors were more becom
ing. And here again the world has come round to
where the Puritan took his stand. When we dress
in brown and drab and black we confess that the
Puritan was a man capable of setting fashions
which are worth following. Three centuries ago
it was customary for men to bedeck themselves
with jewelry, ribbons, and laces, against which the
Puritans rebelled. To them a man was dressed in
taste only when he dressed plainly. In the mat
ter of dress and manners the Puritan .triumph has
been complete. We no longer count him a gentle
man who was counted such in the days of Shake
speare. The English gallant of.,, those days
seems to us a dude or fop. His pockets were
filled with cards and dice, his mouth was fiUed
with oaths, and his ideas of moraHty had not
come to him from the New Testament. This
perfumed, ruffled, swaggering dandy was offensive
to the Puritan upon whom a nobler ideal of man
hood had dawned. And here again the. Puritan
has conquered. Even the facetious people who
make fun of the Puritans have accepted the
Puritanic conception of a gentleman.
V
WHAT WE OWE
Upon every department of our Hfe these mighty
men have left the prints of their hands, and it

CONGREGATIONALISM 17
is becoming in us to render them the homage
which is their due. We cannot rightly interpret
history until we understand these men, for in
the words of John Richard Green, "the whole
history of English progress on its moral and
spiritual side has been the history of Puritanism."
The unprejudiced scholars of all countries and
parties agree with Macaulay in saying "they
were the most remarkable body of men, perhaps,
which the world has ever produced." We belittle
ourselves whenever we attempt to behttle them.
We show ourselves either ignorant or biased
whenever we refuse to acknowledge the debt
which the world owes them. The men of the
seventeenth century were excusable for their
unjust judgments upon Puritan conceptions and
conduct, for they were ,obhged to look at them
through a distorted atmosphere filled with prejudice
and rumor. But we need not be thus blinded.
We can see them through an atmosphere which
the lapse of time has cleansed. We are far enough
removed from them to view them in the right
perspective, and to catch the true proportion of
their Hves and deeds. We are indeed ungrateful
and contemptible if we ever allow ourselves to
think or speak disrespectfully of the men who
bought for us with agony and bloody sweat
our dearest rights and privileges, and who with
tears and blood laid the deep foundations on which
have been reared the fabric of our liberties.
VI
FOUR COMPANIES OF REFORMERS
Out of the heart of Puritanism Congrega
tionalism came. In times of reform men go to

18 CONGREGATIONALISM
different lengths. How far a man will go depends
on his temper, education, insight, and the com
bination of his faculties. Some men by the
momentum of hereditary forces must be radicals,
others must be conservatives. The men of the
sixteenth century who started out to reform the
Church stopped at different points. There were
four revolts, each one more radical than the one
which preceded it. First came what we may
call the Episcopal revolt. There were English
men who were devoted to [the English Church
and who loved its polity and forms of adminis
tration, but who wished to purge it of its corrup
tions and to cut it loose from some of the usages
and traditions with which the Church of Rome
had bound it. These men clung to the sacra
ments, the creeds, the episcopacy, and the general
structure of an established national Church.
Freed from the pope, all they asked was that
certain features of the Roman paraphernalia
might be dispensed with. Bishop Hooper, some
times called the Father of Puritanism, may
stand in our mind as a representative of this
class. He made war on Romish ceremonies,
and because of this he was one of the first to be
burned at the stake by Bloody Mary.
But other Englishmen went farther than
Hooper. There were men who were not content
with simply cutting off the pope: they insisted
that the bishops must go too. The bishops had
for centuries been tyrannical in their temper and
had claimed and exercised prerogatives which
the New Testament did not give them. There
was no peace or freedom for the Church of Christ
— so many Englishmen felt — unless the bishops
should be driven out and the ecclesiastical authority

CONGREGATIONALISM 19
be placed in the hands of a body of presbyters,
part of them clergymen and the other part lay
men. Here we come to a fuller recognition of
the rights of laymen than the Church had known
since the days of the apostles. Christians who
preferred to be ruled by presbyters became
known as Presbyterians. They retained the
sacraments and the creeds and, like the Episco-
paHans, were stout defenders of a state church.
Thomas Cartwright may stand as an illustrious
champion of the Presbyterian position.
But there were EngHshmen not so conserva
tive as Thomas Cartwright. They were afraid
of ruling elders no less than of bishops, and claimed
that as the faith was once for all delivered to
the saints, so also ought supreme authority in
the Church to He in the hands of the people.
They beHeved that presbyter was only priest
writ large, and that men could never enjoy the
freedom wherewith Christ had made them free
until every congregation of faithful men was a
democracy, exercising complete control over all
its affairs. This meant of course that the Act
of Supremacy was a mistake, for Jesus Christ
and not EHzabeth was the head of the Church.
It also meant that the Act of Uniformity was a
usurpation, for every congregation of faithful
men had a right to worship God in ways which
seemed to it best. These radicals were known as
Separatists and were hated of all men. They
were feared and shunned by Romanists, Episco
palians, and Presbyterians alike, as traitors to
their country and ecclesiastical anarchists bent
on shattering the Church of God to fragments.
Six of them were seized and hanged during the reign
of EHzabeth, and hundreds of others suffered

20 CONGREGATIONALISM
many things at the hands of state officials. The
EpiscopaHans had placed power in the hands of
the bishops, the Presbyterians in the hands of
the presbyters, the Separatists in the hands of the
people, but in the sixteenth century to trust
the people was both treason and blasphemy.
John Robinson was one of the bravest and braini
est of these Separatists. He was the pastor of
the church a portion of whose members landed
at last on Plymouth Rock.
But to certain Englishmen John Robinson was
a conservative. There were men who insisted
on going farther. The Separatists had cast off
pope, bishop, presbyter, and state church, but
they clung to the sacraments and the clergy and
the creeds. Why should not these also be cast
off? Why not make Christianity whoUy spiritual,
burning up every sign and symbol which could
suggest to the mind the ancient tyranny and the
age-long corruption? God's voice in the soul
of man, this, so these men asserted, is enough,
and anything beyond this is both unscriptural
and dangerous. These radicals became known
as Quakers, and George Fox stands in history as
their father.
Here, then, we reach the extreme limits of the
Puritan movement. Beyond this it was not
possible to go. One set of men threw off the
pope, the second set threw off the bishops, the
third set threw off the presbyters, the fourth set
threw off the clergy, sacraments, and creeds.
And thus the splendid Roman CathoHc Church,
with her awe-inspiring hierarchy and her elab
orate and magnificent ceremonials, stands at one
extreme, while at the other extreme we have
only a little company of plainly dressed, earnest-

CONGREGATIONALISM 21
faced people, waiting in silence for the movement
of God's spirit. Roman Catholics and Quakers
are separated from one another by the entire
diameter of Christian thought. Under the influ
ence of Rome the Church of the Carpenter of
Nazareth was arrayed in gorgeous and multi
tudinous robes. One robe after another was
torn from her by the hands of devoted reformers
until at last, without clergy, sacrament, or creed,
she stood naked, Hstening not to parliament or
council, pope or king, but to Him who although
not seen is loved. VII
CONGREGATIONALISTS AND BAPTISTS
But it is the Separatists with whom we are
just now concerned. They did not agree among
themselves and divided into two bands, the
first calling themselves Baptists, the second be
coming known as Independents. These Inde
pendents on reaching the new world became
known later on as CongregationaHsts. The Bap
tists and Independents agreed on all points save
two, the mode of baptism and the proper subjects
of baptism. To the Independents the form of
baptism was not essential, various forms having
been used in Bible times, and therefore any one
of these is vahcL To the Baptists there was
no vafid baptism unless the entire body of the
believer was submerged. The Independents, fol
lowing the unbroken tradition and practise of
the entire Church for over a thousand years,
claimed that children of Christian parents are
proper subjects for baptism, whereas the Baptists
limited this sacrament to those who were able

22 CONGREGATIONALISM
to make a personal confession of faith in Christ.
But in their general conceptions of church polity,
and in their root ideas of God and Christian
privileges and freedom, the Baptists and Congre
gationaHsts have ever been at one. In church
government and administration all Baptists are
CongregationaHsts, that is, they agree with us
in vesting final authority neither in officials nor
in councils, but in the hands of the local congre
gation of beHevers. VIII
THE FOUNDATION PRINCIPLE
What is the root idea of CongregationaHsm?
The right of every Christian to immediate access
to the throne of God. Out of this basal idea
everything else flows. Unless this first truth
is admitted, then everything else in Congre
gationaHsm is without defense. From the days
of Robinson downward, we have steadfastly be
lieved in the priesthood of beHevers. Every
believer is a priest and has the right to enter the
holy of holies and commune with the Eternal. To
every seeking child of God is given directly wis
dom, guidance, power. This was vehemently
denied by the Church of Rome. Her teaching was
that souls must come to God through the Church.
By the Church was meant priest, bishop, cardinal,
and pope. Outside the Church there was no
salvation. Through the clergy and through the
clergy alone came absolution, guidance, favor
with God. Our forefathers brushed aside with
one magnificent sweep the whole hierarchy from
bottom to top, saying, "We are all priests unto
God, and each one of us must stand for him-

CONGREGATIONALISM 23
self before the judgment-seat of Christ." After
Henry VIII freed England from the yoke of Rome,
the English government attempted to usurp
the place which the Roman hierarchy had filled.
King and parliament claimed the right, not
only to select church officials, but also to determine
the forms of worship. The tyranny of Rome
was superseded by the tyranny of Canterbury and
WhitehaH, and our forefathers rose in swift and
determined rebelUon. Elizabeth claimed the right
to say by what forms aU her subjects should
worship God, and this right the Separatists denied.
She hanged a few of them and imprisoned many,
but conquered none. James I with more pomp
than wisdom declared that he would compel
these men to conform to his church laws or he
would "harry them out of the land." It was to
escape his wrath that the Pilgrims fled into HoUand.
Charles I was still more despotic than his father.
Finding parhament unwilling to be his tool,
he ruled for eleven years without a parhament.
Through a large part of this period William Laud
was practically head of the Enghsh Church,
and so merciless were his measures to bring non
conforming Christians into subjection, that within
these eleven years twenty thousand English
Puritans crossed the Atlantic to make their
home in New England. These men were deter
mined that no one — be he even pope or king —
should stand between the soul and God.
IX
WHAT FOLLOWS
But if it be true that every Christian has a
right to go straight to God and is capable of

24 CONGREGATIONALISM
receiving from him wisdom in every time of need,
then upon the shoulders of every Christian is
rolled a burden of responsibiUty. If the Chris
tian has rights, he also has duties. If he has
privileges, he also has obligations. If he can
become a partaker of the divine Hfe, then he may
be safely trusted. He may be reHed on to take
a share in conducting God's business on earth.
He may be entrusted with church administration.
In other words, a company of Christian believers,
every one of whom has immediate access to the
mind and heart of Christ, can be trusted to manage
its own church affairs without interference from
bishop or pope, council or general assembly.
If Christ is present wherever two or three are
assembled together in his name, then his cause
will not suffer if left entirely to those among
whom he dwells. The congregation of believers
has the right to rule, and Christ alone is head.
It is for this reason we are called Congrega
tionaHsts: we beHeve that the congregation,
rather than the presbyters, or the bishops, or
the pope, can be trusted to decide what it ought
to do. A church must have a form of worship.
Who shall decide what it shall be? We say let
the congregation decide it. Why not? Who
shall write the confession of faith? Let the
congregation do it. It is instructed of Christ.
Who shall choose the minister and the other
church officials? The congregation, certainly.
Who shall determine who shall be admitted into
the church and who shall be cast out as unworthy,
and what shall be the methods of church activity?
Why not let the people decide all these questions?
If every Christian can go straight to God who
gives liberally and upbraids not, surely a company

CONGREGATIONALISM 25
of faithful men may be trusted to carry on church
Hfe and work to the glory of God. Trust the
people, that is our message to the world. We
are ecclesiastical democrats. We believe in gov
ernment of the people, by the people, and for the
people. That is our platform in politics, that
is our creed in religion. The people may make
mistakes, but their blunders will not be more
numerous or costly than those made by selected
bodies of church officials, or by national or inter
national assemblies. This, then, is Congrega
tionalism: the right of every local body of beHevers
to fix its own forms of worship, to phrase its
own creed, to choose its own officers, and to admin
ister without outside check or interference its
own church affairs. X
HOW THE DENOMINATIONS DIFFER
It is in this local independence that we differ
from the other branches of the Christian Church.
The Episcopal Church beheves in uniformity of
worship. That idea is an inheritance from the
days of EHzabeth which it has never been willing
to cast off. Every Episcopal church throughout
the country must accept at the hands of the
general " convention " a prescribed form of worship
and this must not be departed from by any
congregation in the entire Episcopal communion.
We CongregationaHsts do not beHeve in binding
men so. Human beings differ in temperament
and taste, in aptitudes and culture, and forms
which are edifying to one company of Christians
are only wearisome to others. We Congrega
tionaHsts say let every congregation worship in

26 CONGREGATIONALISM
the way which best satisfies its needs and pro
motes its growth in hoHness. The Httle congre
gation in a mining town in the shadow of the
Rocky Mountains might not want a service Hke
the one preferred by churches in New York or
Boston, and these might not care for the one
most helpful to Christians on the frontier. Let
the church in the east worship in its own way,
and let the western church direct its worship
as it chooses, and let neither body of beHevers
tyrannize in these matters over the other, for
Christ has made us free. That is Congregation
alism. From the Presbyterians we differ chiefly in
our government. The presbytery, synod, and
general assembly are councils with judicial
powers: the councils of CongregationaHsm have
advisory functions only. What the general
assembly decrees all loyal Presbyterians must
obey: what our national council advises aU good
CongregationaHsts will do, so far as the advice
commends itself to their best judgment. Under
one form of government the restrictions are ex
ternal and legal, under the other the compulsions
are interior and spiritual. By the action of the
general assembly, one creed is binding on all
Presbyterian preachers and churches: Congrega
tional churches phrase their own creeds, each
church for itself. The present creed of the
Presbyterians is the Westminster Confession, an
inheritance of the seventeenth century. In the
judgment of many Presbyterian leaders this
creed is antiquated and in certain parts unchris
tian and false. But no matter how widely thou
sands of Presbyterians may dissent from their
creed and how vigorously individual leaders may

CONGREGATIONALISM 27
attack it, it remains the authorized confession of
faith of aU Presbyterian clergymen and churches
until the general assembly has modified it or cast
it away. No Congregational church can be
obhged to subscribe to any creed which is not
acceptable to the majority of its members.
From the Methodists we differ, among other
things, in our freedom in the choice of ministers.
According to the theory of Methodism pastors
are chosen by the bishop, and the appointment
of the bishop is final. The members of the church
may vigorously protest and the preacher himself
may be reluctant to go, but if all are loyal
Methodists they will abide by the decision of the
bishop no matter what it may be. Congrega
tionalism submits to no such bondage. We be
Heve that the members of a church know better
than any outside officials which man can most
acceptably meet their needs and build them up
in righteousness. No man can become the pas
tor of any Congregational church without re
ceiving a majority vote of all the members who
care to express their preferences in choosing a
leader. From the Catholics we differ in government at
almost every point. With them the hierarchy
is supreme, with us the people. It is the Cath-
ohc clergy who determine the entire policy of
the church and fix every detail in its adminis
tration: in a Congregational church nothing of
moment is done without the consent of the
laity. According to the Roman idea the clergy
constitute the church: according to the Congre
gational idea the church is made up of the Lord's
foUowers.

28 CONGREGATIONALISM XI
OUR MISSION
What then has been the mission of Congrega-
tionahsm? It has taught the world new lessons
in freedom. It has demonstrated that the people
may be trusted. By admitting laymen into
new liberty it has developed the sense of individual
responsibihty and produced a body of Christian
people who have profoundly influenced the temper
and methods of the entire Christian world.
There is not a denomination which does not bear
on it the marks of our influence. We have
radiated the spirit of liberty into every branch
of the Christian Church in the new world. The
Roman Catholic Church in the United States
is widely different in temper and ideals from
the same Church in any other land. American
Catholic laymen have in many instances rebelled
against the tyranny of their ecclesiastical superiors,
manifesting an independence and determination
to secure their rights which remind one of the
spirit which has from the beginning dominated
our Congregational churches. We have above
all others contributed to the creation of that at
mosphere of democracy under whose continuous
and irresistible influence all American institutions
have taken their present shape. Because of the
strength and influence of our leaders we have
been able to be the advance guard in many a
noble cause.
In the great work of education we have always
been in the forefront. We founded the first
college established in the new world, and planted
the idea out of which our public school system
has developed. If men are to be trusted they

CONGREGATIONALISM 29
must be educated. To those who rule in state
and church, knowledge is indispensable. Bowdoin
and Dartmouth, Amherst and WiUiams, Harvard
and Yale — all founded by CongregationaHsts —
are witnesses to our unfaltering beUef that neither
state nor church is secure unless the people have
knowledge. Streams of influence have flowed
from these New England colleges across the land,
causing colleges and academies and schools to
spring up, helping to shape the Hfe of communities
and to fix the temper and ideals of our civihzation.
First in education, we were first also in the work
of home and foreign missions. We sent the first
Christian workers among the Indians, and organ
ized the first American society to carry the gospel
to foreign lands. We are the light brigade in
the Lord's. great army, and can dash ahead and
seize strategic points and hold them until the
heavier battaHons come up. We did this in the
days of slavery. We pushed our work into
the South and, while other churches held aloof, we
preached the rights of black men under the eaves
of southern meeting-houses in which the worshipers
had forgotten that a negro was the child of God.
Our freedom gives us room to act and that at
once. While radicals and conservatives in the
national councils of the other branches of the
Church wrestle with one another, the latter
constantly holding the former back from attempted
reformations, we are free to plunge at once into
whatever great work the Lord assigns, and can
keep abreast of the most advanced thought and
most efficient methods of the times. If any
Congregational church is ever a laggard in the
day of progress or ever a recreant to present duty,
it is not because it is handicapped by denomina-

30 CONGREGATIONALISM
tional machinery, but because its pastor and mem
bers are blind to opportunity and unwilling to
come to the help of the Lord against the mighty.
XII
OUR CONTRIBUTIONS
But we have given more than our spirit to
our sister denominations. We have assisted
them in their work by lavish contributions of
men and money. Many of the giants of Pres-
byterianism were born in Congregational homes,
and Episcopacy owes not a little of its strength
to the men whose torches were lit at our fires.
The greatest Episcopal preacher which America
has produced was given to that denomination
by a Congregationahst mother, and the successor
of Bishop Brooks was reared and trained within
our denominational fold. Run through the
churches of the metropolis, and you wiU be
surprised to find what a large proportion of the
effective preachers and the faithful and influ
ential laymen have on them the marks either of
Congregational ancestry or Congregational train
ing. Our polity has produced a type of Christian
which is prized and utiHzed in every branch of
the Christian Church. Of our money we have
given so freely to outside causes that our own
enterprises have often been crippled by deficits
resulting from our indiscriminate generosity.
XIII
OUR DEBTS
If we have given, we also have received both in
brain and treasure from every branch of the Chris-

CONGREGATIONALISM 31
tian Church. We have not lived alone nor have
we worked alone. Whatever is excellent in the
methods and labors of other Christians we claim
the privilege of using. AU things are ours because
we belong to Christ. As a branch of the universal
Church we prize and use whatever treasures have
been given to preceding generations. , Everything
that belongs to Christianity belongs to us, and
from every branch of Christendom we have taken
ideas and interpretations which have enriched
our denominational life. To the Presbyterians
we have been bound by ties especially close and
tender, freely exchanging ministers and laymen,
and for many years working together in home and
foreign missionary labors. XIV
OUR SPIRIT
Indeed, our hospitality to aU members of the
great household of faith and our willingness to
cooperate with aU who call upon the name of the
Lord have been our crowning characteristics.
We are not sectarian nor exclusive. We dwell
more upon the points on which we agree with our
neighbors than upon the points on which we differ.
So seldom do our ministers preach on Congrega
tionalism that thousands of our people do not
know our history and cannot state the distinguish
ing principles of our denominational life. So
slight is the emphasis placed on denominational
loyalty that our members on moving from one
locaHty to another pass readily into whatever
communion happens to be nearest to them.
CongregationaHsts above all others are sought
after by those soHciting money for needy causes,

32 CONGREGATIONALISM
so great is their reputation for wiUingness to
help whatever movement promises to advance
the kingdom of our Lord. We have no quarrels
with anybody. Claiming the right to worship
God in our own way, and to do our work as
seemeth to us best, we give to every body of
Christians the rights which we claim for ourselves.
If many Christians are helped by incense and
candles, let them have them; if others like an
elaborate liturgy, let them enjoy it; if others
prefer bishops or presbyters, or presiding elders,
or baptism by immersion only, it is their privUege
to have what they desire. We deny to no man
the freedom with which Christ has set us free.
We are willing to cooperate with all branches of
the Church so far as they will let us. We strive
to live at peace with all our neighbors. While
we do not believe in the uniformity of the Church,
we do believe most heartily in its unity, and our
constant aim is to keep "the unity of the spirit
in the bond of peace." With all true Christians
everywhere we join with Christ in his high priestly
prayer that all his foUowers may be one. We
beHeve in the "Holy Catholic Church, the com
munion of saints."

, i.

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